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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

B&G: Robertson's Chickamauga in five acts

The next issue of Blue and Gray Magazine (Vol. 25, Issue 2 - Summer 2008) will be the final piece of a five-part series covering the campaign and battle of Chickamauga by noted expert William Glenn Robertson. I understand it was a rough year as a subscriber if you have no interest in the battle, but I can't recommend the issues highly enough. This whole series has been an example of the best of military magazine publishing in long form. Put together, the magazine has basically issued a new Chickamauga "book". Here is the Table of Contents (.pdf format) for part 5.

It's been a treat that should tide anyone over until Dave Powell finishes his Chickamauga map study.

9 comments:

Hello DrewThanks for the information on the Blue & Gray magazines. Also interested with Art Bergeron's comments about a manuscript. I assume this is the same William Robertson who wrote the study on The Bermuda Hundred Campaign?

I had heard another author was working on a Chickamauga campaign study, but has shelved it. I do think a book length work would be well accepted.

I never finished Peter Cozzens book on the battle. Perhaps need to give it another try. I did enjoy his other books and I'm looking forward to his upcoming book.

Yes, the same Robertson. He runs the combat studies Institute at Ft. Leavenworth for the Army, and developed the Chickamauga staff ride for that program.

Larry Daniel was working on a manuscript, but I am not sure if he is still doing so. I was helping with research, but he let that project go dormant several years ago. He may yet resume it.

The 5 part B&G series has been outstanding, and proves why Glenn is the man on Chickamauga. The details he encompasses within the limits of the format are amazing, and often send me scrambling for the footnotes.

Art,

Glenn may or may not write a seperate monograph. I have talked with him a couple of times, and gotten the impression that he does not have the time to devote to a larger mss. Also, the B&G articles have broken the ground he wanted to with regard to insights and new information he wanted to put out, so it is possible that this particular itch has been scratched.

My own work owes a great debt to Glenn's - he has been unstinting in allowing me access to sources and insights (to the point of being sworn to secrecy on a couple of issues - LOL) that allowed my own work to go forward.

I expect my map manuscript on the battle to be published next fall. Savaas-Beatie expects me to turn in the finished mss by January, 2009, for publication in 8/09, and I am on track to meet that goal. I expect the work to have 125 maps, each with a page of text, akin to Gottfried's Gettysburg project. It may also include my own research into numbers and losses (akin to Busey and Martin's work on Gettysburg) assuming there is enough space.

Ultimately, I want to write a two-volume history of the battle, but I have to convince someone to publish it...

I'm looking for the best treatment of the Chickamauga Campaign. The five-part series of Robertson in Blue and Gray Magazine is still available and I'm a bit suspicious about Cozzens (don't realy know why).Can you recommand me something ? Since this post (2008) are there new books published (apart from Powell)?

Mathieu,I don't have any big problem with Cozzens, but I can see why you might want to wait for something bigger and better (i.e. anticipating Powell's 2-vol. project). Besides Powell's "The Maps of Chickamauga" and his Forrest at Chickamauga study, the only other post-2008 thing I can think of offhand is a really nice set of essays published the next year under the title "The Chickamauga Campaign" - http://cwba.blogspot.com/2010/08/woodworth-ed-chickamauga-campaign.html

Thank you Drew. It's appreciated. I'll get the B&G issues :)As for 'The Chickamauga Campaign', you just remember me...that was indeed a nice set. In fact, Mr Robertson paper on Longstreet was well written. I'll definitely get the G&G issues.